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OUTSOURCED
Directed by John Jeffcoat.
Produced by Tom Gorai.
Written by Jeffcoat & George Wing.
Director of Photography Teodoro Maniaci.
Edited by Brian Berdan.
Music by BC Smith.
Released by Truly Indie.
Language: English & Hindi with English subtitles. Country of Origin: USA. 103 min. Rated PG-13.
With: Josh Hamilton, Ayesha Dharker, Larry Pine, Asif Basra & Matt Smith.

Outsourcing may be costing thousands of Americans their jobs, but, for one lost American yuppie, it earns him a soul – or at least a hearty dose of joie de vivre. And in this cross-cultural comedic stew, it somehow feels like a fair exchange.

Outsourced uses a harsh socio-economic reality as a backdrop for a mostly frivolous film – one part romance, one part Indian tourism ad, and a sprinkling of social commentary. Todd Anderson (Josh Hamilton) is dispatched to India to train a bevy of low-cost workers in the fine art of selling American kitsch (think cheese hats and ceramic bald eagles) over the phone. Having passively submitted to a culture of materialism, luxury, and McDonald’s all his life, our generic protagonist – sporting starchy dress shirts and an air of unease – finds it difficult to revel in the subcontinental chaos. But as he dodges pushy cabbies, avoids the iffy food, and laments about his corporately unsavvy trainees, the setup for a cultural awakening seems painfully translucent.

Even more see-through is the build-up to a romance with an apt and spunky member of his Indian replacement brigade, a relationship blossoming from an almost farcical cliché. Todd and Asha (Ayesha Dharker) discover their attraction while trapped on an island where the only available hotel room is the gaudy Kama Sutra suite – sparing the audience the agony of wondering “Will they or won’t they?”

In what I hope is a deliberate tribute to banality, the script exploits every facet of a typical feel-gooder set on foreign soil: the mandatory group dancing scenes, triggered with a click of the stereo and almost no contextual foreplay; the intractable boy thief, whose annoying habit of stealing Todd’s cell phone belies his big heart and good intentions; and the merry Indians, whose love of family, culture, and life show the jaded American what he’s been missing.

While skipping a stone across every cliché in the book, director John Jeffcoat never sinks the film into flat-out triteness. Neither complicated nor intense, Outsourced manages to steady a preposterously predictable plot by remaining understated and superficial. The film has nothing to prove and no one to shock. The humor may be silly, but not absurd, the topic socially relevant, but not didactic. It’s just a lovely story about some sprightly people in a country where a spontaneous Bollywood dance party seems to be just around the corner. Yana Litovsky
September 28, 2007